I spent my childhood in the city of Kurgan, in its courtyards, squeezed between five-story buildings from the Khrushchev era, near the railway, permeated with the smell of sleepers, the whistles of trains, and the booming echo of dispatchers’ nightly roll calls. As a child, I felt this city was the biggest and most beautiful. I hadn’t seen any others.
The city was filled — each street had its own mood. Completely unclear how some mood and place were connected, but often, immersed in some state or emotion, I mentally found myself on a certain street or in some courtyard.
One short street stretched from the Central to the Suburban railway station had an expressive mood — it would come to mind when I was sad or scared. The parallel street was a little more peaceful and bright. Then, there was the central street named after Gorky, which runs through the main square where, of course, a monument to Lenin stands, along with the Palace of Pioneers. This street had a completely different feel — cozy, festive, and warm. Later, I spent many pleasant and interesting hours on this street, and most of my warm memories are associated with it. A few blocks down was the Tobol River, and beyond that, the summer cottages known as dachas. For me, the city essentially ended there.
Six entrances with benches occupied by pensioners, garbage bins, someone else’s kindergarten, two transformer boxes, a heating main, one pedestrian crossing, and a long diagonal across the yard—and you were at school. The road from school to home and back was made of dirt underfoot and fantasies in my mind. Sometimes I caught myself not remembering the journey. I would simply find myself at home or at school, with no memory of what lay between. Nothing seemed to happen on the way — no events, no faces. And in winter, it was very slippery and cold.
Memories from different places aren’t synchronized or connected in any way. Each belongs solely to the place where it happened. It was as if, when I moved to a new place, I lived another life. I will never remember what happened at school once I started going to the radio club.
I only remember how, at the end of the summer, my mother took me to the large columns of the Palace of Pioneers, where posters with lists of clubs and sections were hanging, and said: “Here, let’s choose.”